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Nuggets of Wisdom

Friday, March 13, 2015

SAE’s Racism Goes Beyond Than One Chant

By now, the stupid, racist frat boys who merrily sang about lynching black people have been expelled and their fraternity has been shut down. That may seem a tad bit extreme when considered in the context of that one chant, but when you review their history, which is stained in racism, you have to wonder why that Celestia-forsaken fraternity hadn’t been shut down earlier.

Despite the fact that its members agree to memorize and follow a creed known as the True Gentleman, SAE has frequently been accused of racist and discriminatory behavior over the years. Now the largest fraternity in the country, SAE seems to have played a disproportionate role in some of the most offensive incidents in recent decades, yet it remains a house in good standing at more than 200 campuses.

In 1982, the University of Cincinnati suspended its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter after it organized a racist party around Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. According to an article in the New York Times, fliers for the event encouraged revelers to “bring such things as a canceled welfare check, ‘your father if you know who he is’ and ‘a radio bigger than your head.’ ”

In 1992, the Texas A&M University chapter hosted a “jungle fever”–themed party that, according to an online exhibit created by the university's Cushing Library, featured “black face, grass skirts and ‘slave hunts.’ ” In 2000, members of SAE at Oglethorpe University were among men from four fraternities who threw bottles at black athletes and yelled racial slurs during a cross-country meet. In 2002, a member of the Syracuse University chapter of SAE wore black face out to local bars.

In 2006, two SAE students were suspended at the University of Memphis after harassing another member for dating a black woman and bringing her to the chapter’s house. In 2009, the Valdosta State University chapter caused outrage on campus after flying a Confederate flag on its front lawn. On Sunday, the Oklahoma State University chapter also drew ire on social media when a Confederate flag could be seen through one of its windows just hours after the controversy emerged at the University of Oklahoma.

In 2013, the Washington University in St. Louis chapter of SAE was suspended after some of its pledges were instructed to direct racial slurs at a group of black students. Last year, 15 SAE members at the University of Arizona broke into a historically Jewish off-campus fraternity and physically assaulted its members while yelling discriminatory comments at them. In December, Clemson University's SAE chapter was suspended after the fraternity hosted a “cripmas” party at which students dressed up as gang members.

So, no, it’s not just about one chant being sung by a couple of drunk frat boys: it’s about a fraternity that has been unabashedly celebrating racism since its inception. Again, you have to wonder why the college waited until now to shut down that gathering of white privileged jerkholes who are a few sheets short of a KKK rally.

“Sheesh, Blame, when did you become such a social justice warrior?!” I hear some of you groan.

No, this isn’t me being a social justice warrior. SJWs go around grasping at straws in order to find racism that doesn’t exist. This isn’t grasping at straws. This is grasping the fuse of a stick of dynamite within a pile of dynamite in a dynamite factory. You have to be blind not to see it, and I’m even sure blind people are able to detect it.

And no, this isn’t just an “isolated incident” of a handful of stupid white boys in a backwater college in the Deep South, anymore than Ferguson was about a few white cops shooting an unarmed black kid. This level of racism is systemic in most college fraternal organizations. Big surprise: when privileged white jerkoffs congregate among other privileged white jerkoffs, they tend to act like a bunch of privileged white jerkoffs.

So what should be done about this? Many have suggested the extreme solution of disbanding the entire Greek system altogether. Me? I just think that colleges need to start keeping a closer eye on these organizations and start holding them accountable rather than shrugging off their behavior as “boys being boys.”

Because when these boys grow up without being called out on their abhorrent behavior, they tend not to grow out of it, and they end up carrying it with them into their careers—which, judging from recent events, seems to usually involve working at the Ferguson police department!